Cleveland Amory

Key Player

Co-founder, Humane Society of the United States; former president, New England Anti-Vivisection Society; founder, The Fund For Animals; bestselling author; deceasedCleveland Amory co-founded the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). He was an editor of The Saturday Evening Post and a commentator for the “Today” television show, but was best known as the author of a series of books about his cat, Polar Bear, whom he saved from the New York Streets on Christmas Eve, 1977 — The Cat Who Came for Christmas, The Cat and the Curmudgeon, and The Best Cat Ever.

Amory came to find HSUS too conservative. He resigned from the board of directors in 1974, in opposition to the leadership of John Hoyt. Amory felt the group paid too much in salaries, did too much fundraising, and was not radical enough.

Armory founded his own group, the Fund for Animals, in 1967, and served as its president until his death in 1998. Along the way, the Fund for Animals helped establish the violent, fishing-boat-ramming Sea Shepherd Conservation Society by giving them money for ships. It also helped put PETA on the fundraising map by aiding its undercover investigation in a primate researcher’s laboratory. Amory’s brother, Robert Amory Jr., was a Harvard law professor and the second Deputy Director of Intelligence for the CIA, and was rumored to be a helpful resource in his animal-rights efforts.

Armory ended up as President of the New England Anti-Vivisectionist Society (NEAVS) in the late ‘80s after he worked with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to take over the $8 million group. As the takeover effort was gearing up in early 1987, Toronto’s Sunday Star wrote: “Armory readily acknowledges his and PETA’s support for illegal ‘direct action’ campaigns to protect animals. ‘We both support and serve as spokespersons for the Animal Liberation Front,’ Armory says candidly.”